Image of Asia: Overseas Filipinos happy to be home

Image of Asia: Overseas Filipinos happy to be home

Monday, August 4, 2014

In this photo by Bullit Marquez, two Filipinos who worked in Libya show cellphone photos they took in war-torn Benghazi before being repatriated home Monday. Nearly 1,000 of about 13,000 Filipino workers and their dependents in Libya have returned to the Philippines since the government ordered their mandatory evacuation. About 10 million Filipinos work overseas, mostly in the Middle East, and the more than $25 billion they sent home last year accounted for about 10 percent of the country's economy. Libya's worst violence since the 2011 civil war that toppled Moammar Gadhafi has sent diplomats and thousands of foreign workers fleeing.